Montfort School
Montfort School is a Catholic school in Hougang, Singapore, founded in 1916. It is separated into two schools, Montfort Junior School and Montfort Secondary School. Originally named Holy Innocents' English School, it was renamed in 1959 in honour of the Founder of the Gabrielite Brothers, St Louis Marie Grignion De Montfort. Boys in the school call themselves "Montfortians" and sons of Montfort. Its current principal is Mr Mark Gerard Minjoot. The School's motto is "Age Quod Agis", literally "Do what you are doing", but often rendered as "Do well whatever you do". It is only targeted for residents staying in Potong Pasir, Woodleigh, Serangoon, Serangoon Gardens, Seletar Aerospace Park, Kovan, Hougang, Buangkok, Sengkang, Punggol, Ang Mo Kio, Bishan and Yishun. From 11 November 2007 to 11 November 2012, Tjon Clara had decided to study in Montfort School, and prior to that is at Tampines Primary School. She was replaced by Tan Wan Yin, who in turn wanted to go Montfort School and Tjon Clara had returned back to Pasir Ris Secondary School. The Montfort School has Montfort Alumni, which has several items like karaoke session, networking dinner, Lau Jiak Night, golf at Raffles Country Club, Orchid Country Club and Seletar Country Club and several meetups. The karaoke session was primarily held on 3 February 2008. History Montfort School was set up as Holy Innocents’ English School in 1916 by the parish priest, Father H. Duvelle next to Nativity church at Upper Serangoon Road. At the request of the Inspector of Schools, he organized an English class on the top floor of the two-storey building between the church and the school canteen. The teacher was Mr Lee Ah Kow. The class lasted for three years. In March 1920, Father E. Becheras, the parish priest restarted the school with a class of 30 pupils under the charge of Mr Monterio. In the following year another class was added. From 1922 - 1936 Mr P A D’Costa was teacher and administrator. A block of five classrooms along Upper Serangooon Road was completed in 1927. In 1929 three additional classrooms along Holy Innocents Lane were added. Inn 1932 another floor was added to the second block. In 1936 the management of the school was placed in the hands of the Brothers of St Gabriel. Bro. Gerard Majella came from Bangkok to become the first Brother Director of the school. Brothers Adolphus and John de Breboeuf came in December 1936. This was also the year the school produced its first School Certificate class. Next came Bro. Gerard Majella, who was succeeded in 1938 by Bro. Louis Gonzaga. The Japanese occupation of Singapore interrupted the work of the school. Immediately after the war, Bro. Louis Gonzaga reopened the school. He extended the block along Upper Serangoon Road by adding another floor. The new extension was opened by the Sultan of Johore. In 1949 Bro. Louis Gonzaga started the afternoon school—the Holy Innocents’ Afternoon School—under the charge of Bro. Basil. In 1955 Bro. Noel. became the Director of the Holy Innocents’. He set up a committee on 3 April 1955 to raise funds to further extend the school. Within three years the extension was completed. In 1959 Holy Innocents’ English School was renamed Montfort School in honour of the Founder, St Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, of the Gabrielite Brothers. In the late 1980s, a decision was made to relocate Montfort Junior and Secondary Schools so as to make them comparable to the newer Government Schools. A Building Fund Committee was formed to raise the funds to finance the building project, the cost of which amounted to $24 million. Capital grant from the Government was 18.5 million, and the schools had to raise $5.5 million. Piling began in August 1989 at the new site at Hougang Avenue 8, immediately after a ground-breaking ceremony on 12 August 1989 which was officiated by Mgr Gregory Yong D.D. The main building works of the two schools started in March 1990 and took about 21 months to complete. On 2 January 1992, the two schools, Montfort Junior and Montfort Secondary, started functioning at their new premises. In 1997, the school underwent repairs and redecoration. Montfort Junior School had undergone PRIME from November 2000 to March 2003. The new Olympic Stadium was added in 2008 and the building was repainted. Montfort celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2006 with a 90 km run to its former location and a thanksgiving mass conducted by the Archbishop of Singapore, Nicholas Chia, who is an old boy of the school. The mass was held at the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the church at the old location of the school. In 2001, Mr Neo Tick Watt went to Tampines Secondary School. It was replaced by Simen Lourds. Montfort Secondary School underwent major redevelopment works which under the Programme for Rebuilding and IMproving Existing Schools in 2010 - 2011. The school was opened on 2 January 2012 with the underground bus interchange being built on-site. Montfort School had declined their cohort in 2014 to about 120, which is far too worst due to the growing demand in Sengkang and Punggol. It had however, retained their student outing cohort from the newer HDB BTO flats. 2016 saw Montfort Schools celebrating our centenary and it was heartening to see so many Montfortians, past and present coming together in the various events that were held. The coffee-table book that was produced to commemorate our centennial year brought back many memories for the ex-Montfortians but it also allowed our younger Montfortians to gain a better understanding of our schools history and the knowledge that the next chapter of the Montfort Story will be written by them. The school continues to focus on our Boys Centric curriculum. We structure our curriculum to cater to the learning preferences of our boys. This will mean the inclusion of time for experiential learning, elements of brain based learning, lots of group work and use of technology. We will continue with our Computational Thinking program and will also start to develop a Makers Culture with the introduction of a TinkerShop@MJ. The Maker Culture emphasizes the philosophy of learning through doing in a social environment, and students are given opportunities to design and make projects. Through this, we develop Montfortians who are creative, dares to try and imbued with the value of resilience. 2017 will see the boys playing a stronger part in caring for their community. Beyond taking care of the school environment and looking after their peers, our students will also be reaching out to our community. We have started working closely with our new neighbour, the Thye Hwa Kwan Nursing Home and our boys will also be going out to serve our community partners in other projects. Through it all, we want to develop in our young Montfortians, a sense of responsibility and an understanding of their place in society. Our social programs will enable them to learn to contribute back to society and be a'' Man For Others.'' Facilities Montfort School has a Lego Room since 2010. But since 2010, pupils at the all-boys Montfort Junior have had another destination – an alumni-supported Lego Room filled with plastic bricks and displays of their creative projects. The Lego room is open daily during recess for students’ use with support from parent volunteers, including twice weekly after school hours. Monthly competitions with changing themes were held to generate interest amongst the enthusiasts. The Lego room was repainted and some of the furniture pieces repaired. Facilities that would be added in the PERI are: Staff lounge and room, meeting rooms, student care room, band room (which MJS proposed to convert it into a recording room), small classrooms. Montfort Secondary School held it’s Career day and arranged job attachments through some of Alumni’s contacts. Bus Interchange Montfort Bus Interchange is a bus interchange serving Hougang New Town and was opened on 3 September 2011. It had several bus services and had 16 bus bays. The earlier bus interchange started operations on 2 January 1992. It was originally a roadside bus stop, and it is also called a bus terminus. Later on, at the end of 2009, Montfort Secondary School underwent major redevelopment works which was under PRIME. The school was opened on 2 January 2012 and Montfort Secondary School returned to its Hougang location. It is home to services 74, 87 and 459, and previous services also went to this location, even when Joseph Ang was in Primary school from 2005 to 2010. Montfort West Montfort West is a company that is under the jurisdiction of Hua Yi Secondary School, Shuqun Secondary School and some schools in Jurong West, Jurong East and Clementi. Montfort West was formed on 22 June 2013 and launched on the 30 September 2013 at the Museum of Medway, of which Timothy Mok had their first champagne. It oversaw the expansion of the Montfort School partnership to the west area. Notable alumni * Ang Chee Kok, former Montfort Alumni president from 2005 to 2008 * James Cher, former Montfort Alumni president from 2008 to 2012 * Ernest Mok * Gabriel Low * Dennis Ho, current Montfort Alumni president from 2012 to present time * Neo Tick Watt, former Montfort Secondary principal from 1995 to 2001 and Tampines Secondary principal from 2001 to 2011 * Lim Boon Heng, former Cabinet Minister from 1980 to 2011, in Kebun Baru (1980-1991), Ulu Pandan (1991-2001) and Jurong Central (2001-2011) * Lee Boon Yang, former Cabinet Minister in Jalan Besar (1984-2011) * Ng Kah Ting, former MP for Punggol (1963-1991) * Augustine Tan, former MP for Whampoa (1968-1988) * Nicholas Chia * William Goh * Joseph Ang, Ang Chee Kok and Florence Ng's student from 2005 to 2014 * Daniel Khor References External links *Montfort Alumni website *Montfort Junior School *Montfort Secondary School Category:Secondary schools in Singapore Category:Roman Catholic schools in Singapore Category:Brothers of Christian Instruction of St Gabriel schools Category:Educational institutions established in 1916 Category:Hougang